More regarding "wa"

[REGINA PUSTET]

I looked at my wa-file again, and I found one example in which wa- potentially has animate reference in Lakota:



John wa-w-iyuNg^a-pi

John WA-WA-ask-PL



can mean either 'they ask John about things' or 'they ask people about John'. Regarding the second translation, my speaker feels that wa- refers to the people being asked. However, this is the only example in hundreds of wa-clauses in which wa- seems to have animate reference. But thinking about this further, in etymologizing Lakota nouns such as



wa-makha-s^kaN

WA-earth-move.ITR

'animal (i.e. [on-]earth-mover)',



we end up with animate reference for wa- again. Or is there a different way of analyzing this form?



Regina



> Notice that Dhegiha does allow wa with animate reference. I was
> momentarily taken aback by Regina's comment yesterday that Dakotan wa was
> necessarily inanimate, because of that. Somehow I had always assumed that
> wa could have a non-specific animate reference, too. Would a Dakotan
> nominalization require wic^ha- or something like that if the inspecified
> argument was animate?






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